Monday, February 27, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
More Cartoons
A collection of interesting articles on the cartoon controversy:
Tolerance Toward Intolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "Everyone is Afraid to Criticize Islam".
From the BBC:
And a cartoon satirizing the whole situation.
Christopher Hitchens has some relevant comments:
Tolerance Toward Intolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "Everyone is Afraid to Criticize Islam".
From the BBC:
Twelve cartoons were originally published by Jyllands-Posten. None showed the Prophet with the face of a pig. Yet such a portrayal has circulated in the Middle East (The BBC was caught out and for a time showed film of this in Gaza without realizing it was not one of the 12).And, an interesting parody by Orthomom.
This picture, a fuzzy grey photocopy, can now be traced back (suspicion having been confirmed by an admission) to a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders who went to the Middle East in November to publicise the cartoons. The visit was organised by Abu Laban, a leading Muslim figure in Denmark.
According to the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, the delegation took along a pamphlet showing the 12 drawings. But the delegation also showed a number of other pictures, including the "pig" one. The delegation claimed they were the sort of insults that Muslims in Denmark had to endure. These also got into circulation.
(Update: A reader has e-mailed to say that the original of the "pig" picture was from a "pig-squealing" competition held in France every summer. Some character dressed up like a pig. See the link to the neandernews.com site on the right for the details.
Ekstra Bladet has also published a letter taken by the delegation on its mission. This gives the delegation's account of how the cartoons originated and what the reaction to them was. But it also mentions other pictures, which it said were "much more offending." These presumably included the "pig" picture, whose origin is now known.)
Western diplomats appear to have missed this entirely and seem to have made no attempt to counter some of the arguments in the pamphlet or to distinguish between the various portrayals.
It might not have made much difference but it shows how rapidly propaganda can add to fuel to the fire.
And a cartoon satirizing the whole situation.
Christopher Hitchens has some relevant comments:
Many people have pointed out that the Arab and Muslim press is replete with anti-Jewish caricature, often of the most lurid and hateful kind. In one way the comparison is hopelessly inexact. These foul items mostly appear in countries where the state decides what is published or broadcast. However, when Muslims republish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or perpetuate the story of Jewish blood-sacrifice at Passover, they are recycling the fantasies of the Russian Orthodox Christian secret police (in the first instance) and of centuries of Roman Catholic and Lutheran propaganda (in the second). And, when an Israeli politician refers to Palestinians as snakes or pigs or monkeys, it is near to a certainty that he will be a rabbi (most usually Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the disgraceful Shas party) and will cite Talmudic authority for his racism. For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows.
Sunday, February 5, 2006
Mahmood's Den on the cartoons
Mahmood, of Mahmood's Den, gives a very interesting response to the cartoons.
There was something very similar religiously to what I was accustomed to finding in Judaism - concern for the weak and the poor, the necessity to seek justice, strict insistence on the oneness of God, and the importance of prophecy. The first part of the Muslim confession of faith - the shehadah - is something that Jews would have no problem saying: "There is no god but God." (Compare the sh'ma: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone").
The portrayal of Muhammed in the Qur'an bears striking similarities to the depiction of prophets in the Bible. I don't see any reason to mock or condemn the figure of Muhammed as he is known from the Qur'an, and it makes sense to me why Muslims revere him.
Like Mahmood with some of his fellow Muslims, I have been enraged and saddened when I feel that fellow Jews are trying to hijack my religion and turn it into an excuse for hatred and violence. A number of years ago, when I was living in Israel, one Shabbat afternoon I was visiting someone in the Old City of Jerusalem. The guests went up on to the roof, where we had a clear view of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount - the place sacred to Jews because it is where the Temple stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. It is also a place holy to Muslims - the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located there. The Dome of the Rock may stand on the spot where the Temple once stood. If you have never seen it, it is a beautiful building, with a golden dome and tiled walls. I was standing next to a young religious Jewish man, an American who was studying in Jerusalem, and we were both looking at the Temple Mount. I said to him something like - isn't it a beautiful building? He pointed to the Dome of the Rock and made as if to shoot at it. He said that it would be good if it were destroyed, so that the Temple could be rebuilt on the spot. I said, but aren't they (Muslims) also human beings, made in the image of God (implying that many people would be killed if the mosques on the Temple Mount were destroyed)? He allowed as they might be, but my words clearly had no effect on his desire to destroy the Dome of the Rock.
I don't see that there's any place in Judaism for this kind of hatred and incitement to violence. Unfortunately not all Jews agree with me on this point.
The main thing is the prohibition by Islam on representing the prophets graphically, possibly for fear of some people using that graphic as an idol, hence promoting idolatry practices rather than praying to Allah alone.I would like to make it clear that I don't endorse the sentiments reflected by some of the cartoons published by the Danish newspaper. (Some of them are actually poking fun at the newspaper itself). When I first read selections of the Qur'an as a graduate student in religion, I was very moved - the Qur'an retells many stories from the Hebrew Scriptures, and also refers to later rabbinic traditions (for example, the statement that "he who kills one person, it is as if he has destroyed an entire world").
These cartoons not only represented the prophet, but made fun of, and denigrated him; that's double trouble.
As every Muslim is brought up to respect not only our prophet but also all those who have been sent by Allah to disperse His religions, and that we do not represent the prophet in any way, shape or form, they were insulted by the caricatures which were seen as the height of blasphemy.
Now as WE revere the prophet of Islam (pbuh) and do not represent him and hold him at the highest platform, and as we hold the other prophets at the same level of love and respect, we expect that everyone else in the world to hold our prophet in the same light. Reciprocal respect, if you like, was a "given" to us.
These cartoons shocked Muslims because we were slapped in the face. That respect, it was found, was not reciprocal at all, but one sided.
Now the way that Muslims went about dealing with this situation is, to me, farcical.
Yes, we should hold the prophet at the highest level of love and affection. Yes, we should defend him and his reputation, but the level that most of the protests I've seen, the worst of which was paradoxically in London, proves the point of those cartoons without a shadow of a doubt: Islam is a religion of hate and violence.
These protests and the way this situation was handled is completely wrong. We - continue to preach - that we have the higher moral hand, that our religion is the religion of peace, that our religion is the highest form of moral contract, yet, we go about the streets in droves holding up placards DEMANDING the death and torture of ANYONE who denigrates our religion and its symbols! Why should anyone respect us if this is the way we go about things?
These protests demanding violence, to me, is a complete moral bancruptcy of those taking part in those protests AND of their particular understanding of Islam.
I keep saying, so what if a dimwitted cartoonist, or Nazi or racist or a stupid person drew a cartoon or swore at our religious symbols or misrepresented them? Is that going to reduce our symbols' place in our and hundreds of millions of Muslims' hearts? Is that going to change their greatness? Of course not. So why was this situation blown up out of all rational repercussions?
I think this situation was used to divert the Muslim nation's attention from the real problems festering in its midst. And these things - a full 5 months after being published - were picked up and used, abused, to do just that.
Forget the festering corruption, negligible education, unemployment, squandering of opportunities, injustice, restriction of speech, restriction of expression, and the hundreds of other bad things we go through on a daily basis, and hang them all on a bunch of Danish cartoonists.
I don't buy it.
These cartoons or the hundreds of thousands of ones which probably have been drawn and are more offensive than the original 12 published because of the brouhaha we created will not negate nor lessen my love and respect for a great man sent by Allah as a saviour of the world.
What DOES offend me greatly however is the once again hijacking of my religion, this time universally by all sects, to show the world that it is ugly, intolerant, and violent.
There was something very similar religiously to what I was accustomed to finding in Judaism - concern for the weak and the poor, the necessity to seek justice, strict insistence on the oneness of God, and the importance of prophecy. The first part of the Muslim confession of faith - the shehadah - is something that Jews would have no problem saying: "There is no god but God." (Compare the sh'ma: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone").
The portrayal of Muhammed in the Qur'an bears striking similarities to the depiction of prophets in the Bible. I don't see any reason to mock or condemn the figure of Muhammed as he is known from the Qur'an, and it makes sense to me why Muslims revere him.
Like Mahmood with some of his fellow Muslims, I have been enraged and saddened when I feel that fellow Jews are trying to hijack my religion and turn it into an excuse for hatred and violence. A number of years ago, when I was living in Israel, one Shabbat afternoon I was visiting someone in the Old City of Jerusalem. The guests went up on to the roof, where we had a clear view of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount - the place sacred to Jews because it is where the Temple stood until it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. It is also a place holy to Muslims - the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located there. The Dome of the Rock may stand on the spot where the Temple once stood. If you have never seen it, it is a beautiful building, with a golden dome and tiled walls. I was standing next to a young religious Jewish man, an American who was studying in Jerusalem, and we were both looking at the Temple Mount. I said to him something like - isn't it a beautiful building? He pointed to the Dome of the Rock and made as if to shoot at it. He said that it would be good if it were destroyed, so that the Temple could be rebuilt on the spot. I said, but aren't they (Muslims) also human beings, made in the image of God (implying that many people would be killed if the mosques on the Temple Mount were destroyed)? He allowed as they might be, but my words clearly had no effect on his desire to destroy the Dome of the Rock.
I don't see that there's any place in Judaism for this kind of hatred and incitement to violence. Unfortunately not all Jews agree with me on this point.
Other cartoons
Here are some examples of recent anti-semitic cartoons in the Saudi Press, courtesy of The Religious Policeman.
And see this list of recent anti-semitic press reports from the Arab and Muslim world:
Iran TV Discussion on the Myth of the Gas Chambers and the Truth of Protocols of the Elders of Zion; ‘The Only Solution for This Cancerous Tumor [Israel] is Surgery’ (from January 5, 2006).
U.S.-Based Saudi Professor & Former U.N. Fellow in Interview with Iranian State Media: ‘I Agree Wholeheartedly with President Ahmadinejad… There was No Such Thing as the Holocaust’; The Americans are Digging Their Own Grave and Eventually Will Collapse Just as the Soviet Union Collapsed. This was from an interview on Iranian state media.
Iranian TV Blood Libel: Jewish Rabbis Killed Hundreds of European Children to use Their Blood for Passover Holiday & Discussion on Holocaust Denial.
MEMRI also lists articles by Arab and Muslim writers who OPPOSE the use of anti-semitism - it's not just a one-sided story.
But why isn't the U.S. State Department issuing prominent statements about the plethora of anti-semitic stories, TV broadcasts, etc., on the media of the Arab and Muslim world?
And see this list of recent anti-semitic press reports from the Arab and Muslim world:
Iran TV Discussion on the Myth of the Gas Chambers and the Truth of Protocols of the Elders of Zion; ‘The Only Solution for This Cancerous Tumor [Israel] is Surgery’ (from January 5, 2006).
U.S.-Based Saudi Professor & Former U.N. Fellow in Interview with Iranian State Media: ‘I Agree Wholeheartedly with President Ahmadinejad… There was No Such Thing as the Holocaust’; The Americans are Digging Their Own Grave and Eventually Will Collapse Just as the Soviet Union Collapsed. This was from an interview on Iranian state media.
Iranian TV Blood Libel: Jewish Rabbis Killed Hundreds of European Children to use Their Blood for Passover Holiday & Discussion on Holocaust Denial.
MEMRI also lists articles by Arab and Muslim writers who OPPOSE the use of anti-semitism - it's not just a one-sided story.
But why isn't the U.S. State Department issuing prominent statements about the plethora of anti-semitic stories, TV broadcasts, etc., on the media of the Arab and Muslim world?
Cartoon Context
Andrew Sullivan on the caricatures of Muhammed (he has several good posts on this topic) - "Islamists and Muslims are in a violent uproar about the publication of truly conventional political cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammed. Here are some other cartoons recently printed in the Arab, Muslim press. They are no different than Nazi propaganda in their unvarnished anti-Semitism. And I would defend the right of every one of those papers to publish them. Why, then, cannot Muslims return the favor? What is it about contemporary Islam that seems to make it clearly incompatible wih Western freedom of speech? In that may lie the answer to the most pressing question facing the West today: the illiberal, fanatical religious enemy within."
There are some Muslims who do return the favor (of tolerating even offensive speech), such as the Religious Policeman - alas, they are not the ones in power.
There are some Muslims who do return the favor (of tolerating even offensive speech), such as the Religious Policeman - alas, they are not the ones in power.
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